By admin 
SCOTTSDALE, AZ (AZFamily) — Detectives are working to identify human remains found inside a truck pulled from a popular Scottsdale lake in late August.
Read more Hockey players challenge ASU report on workout tied to teammate’s collapse
On Aug. 30, a Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office helicopter was in the area near McCormick Parkway and Hayden Road for an unrelated call when someone noticed what they thought was a truck in one of the McCormick Ranch lakes.
Scottsdale police were called to investigate and confirmed that a truck was underwater. Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office dive teams eventually recovered it.
Crews also found human remains inside the truck and had previously said the vehicle was connected to a missing persons case out of New Mexico from 2015.
Arizona’s Family has confirmed that Andrew Montoya, who was 41 years old when he was reported missing, owned the truck.
“Obviously, there’ll have to be more steps in the investigation. But it opens the door for a lot more questions,” said retired Phoenix Police Missing Person Detective Stuart Somershoe.
The human remains found in the truck have not been identified yet, and it could take some time before that happens because of the state of decomposition they were in.
“There’s gonna be a lot of challenges in this case, obviously, the passage of time, the water element will do damage to the body and the remains. The first step is going to be identifying the body and make sure this is indeed the missing person. So the three ways you identify bodies, generally speaking, are fingerprints, dental records and DNA. Now, fingerprints aren’t going to be an issue here, because obviously all that evidence is going to be gone,” explained Somershoe.
According to the New Mexico Department of Public Safety database of current missing people, Montoya was reported missing from Santa Fe, New Mexico on March 22, 2015.
Read more Monsoon back for a Big Finish
There are still several unanswered questions, but a woman who knew Montoya told Arizona’s Family he lived in the Valley in the years leading up to his disappearance.
She said Montoya was a loving father and a man of faith who struggled with his own issues, but fought each day to stay positive.
But she and others still have questions, including why Montoya’s car ended up at the bottom of a residential lake and how it took so long, possibly over 11 years, for someone to find it.
“You never know what’s going to bring those to the surface, so to speak. And again it is surprising that it was found at this location, but it’s not totally unheard of,” said Somershoe. “But there are investigative paths they can follow to determine that.”
The Maricopa County Office of the Medical Examiner is also working to determine the cause of death of the person whose remains were found.
See a spelling or grammatical error in our story? Please click here to report it.
Do you have a photo or video of a breaking news story? Send it to us here with a brief description.
Read more Flood Watch for much of the Southwest U.S. with Southeast Arizona included